


I Put Myself Back in the Narrative

by herowndeliverance (atheilen)



Series: Don't Be Shocked When Your Hist'ry Book Mentions Me [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Academia, Alexander Hamilton is Totally That Guy, Christmas, Crack Treated Seriously, F/F, Gen, POV Outsider, Queer Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 02:43:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5522435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atheilen/pseuds/herowndeliverance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna has had enough of That Fucking Guy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Put Myself Back in the Narrative

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gement/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I'll Write Under a Pseudonym](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5426000) by [Gement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gement/pseuds/Gement). 



> This is a direct sequel to Gement's lovely crackfic about Hamilton meeting Ron Chernow, and inspired by a conversation in the comments about what Hamilton would be like as Chernow's RA. I realized he would so be that obnoxious guy at conferences, and this was born.
> 
> Dedicated to all queer scholars, scholars of colour, women scholars, and scholars with disabilities and mental illnesses who continue to fight to put themselves back in the narrative in the face of hostility, microaggressions, and poverty. I know the holidays especially can be tough. I love you all.

Annabel was pissed. Final exams on the 23rd of December were clearly a curse sent by Satan, as one of the undergrads had said yesterday, but they didn’t know the half of it. At least they got to go home afterward. Anna, on the other hand, was stuck on campus in grading jail. On Christmas Eve. And Emily, goddamnit, was being a douche about it again. Together eight years, and she still didn’t get that academics didn’t get holidays, that TAs’ grades were due a week after exams, no matter what, full stop.

 _She’s supportive,_ she told herself. _She really is. You can’t blame her for wanting to spend time with you on Christmas Eve, not really._

Except that she kind of did.

So she had taken her papers into campus-- _university closed, my ass_ in hopes that she could get through at least a few exams before Mom ended up monopolizing all her time. Only…god, they were so bad. Anna underlined the same sentence fragment for the third time, a vicious headache building behind her eyeballs.

 _I should quit_ , she thought. _What’s the point? I’ll never be anything more than an adjunct anyway, and we’ll never be able to afford having kids, and that will be just another goddamn way I’ve failed Em after leeching off her salary for years. Every year I promise her things are going to get better and then they just…don’t._

Her eyes watered. She would not cry on the students’ exams like some goddamn cliché, she wouldn’t.

Just as she did, the door to the TA office burst open.

“Ah, Miss Harris! The very person I wished to encounter!”

It was the last person Anna wished to encounter, today or ever. Alex Fawcett, that weird, middle-aged RA of Chernow’s, strode in like he owned the place, and beamed at her as if they were long-lost friends. (They weren’t.)

“I have been looking for you!” he boomed, and Anna had to stop herself from smashing her forehead into the stack in frustration. 

_You haven’t found me because I’ve been avoiding you, you ass._ “Hi, Alex.”

“I had almost given up hope,” said Fawcett, “of finding you before everyone dispersed. But I realized that if anyone among the department would still be pursuing her studies with single-minded zeal, it would be you, Miss Harris. Your dedication is without peer.”

“What do you want, Alex.”

“To apologize, of course! I haven’t seen you since the conference, and…a friend took me aside afterward and explained why you were so angered by my words. I’ve felt dreadful ever since, in letting my passion for the Federalists and their cause blind me to decency.”

She sighed. “Just forget it. It was a conference paper. People rip into conference papers all the time.” Even if Fawcett had done it in front of Anna’s supervisor.

“But you still think me mistaken.”

“Of course I think you’re mistaken…there was absolutely no evidence for your assertions in the record.” It had been humiliating…Anna had put one sentence in her paper about Alexander Hamilton selling out the cause of abolition in order to establish his national bank, and Fawcett had ripped into her as though she had insulted his personal honor and he wanted to challenge her to a duel. And even when Chernow told him to, he would. Not. Shut. Up. It derailed not only Anna’s presentation, but the next one, and guess who got blamed? Not Fawcett, because “he’s just like that, Anna, you have to understand.”

“I think…I think I was mistaken, as well. I wish that it were not so, but since examining the record, I have come to realize that Hamilton failed. He could have worked harder in support of abolition, though he believed in it passionately.”

“No shit,” said Anna.

“I would…I would ask your advice, Miss Harris, if you’d oblige me. Where do you think Hamilton could have done better?”

She was so done. So very done. “Look, Alex, I have a hundred papers to grade by next week, my Christmas shopping isn’t done, my grant proposal is an incoherent mess, and I’m pretty sure my wife wants to divorce me. I have no time to write AU fanfic about Hamilton the abolitionist crusader, nor is it my job to teach you Colonialism 101. Will you just leave me alone?” She turned her back to him, picked up her pen, made an angry slash through a misspelled word.

“I have primary sources.”

Anna dropped her pen. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Letters. From Hamilton to Laurens, and others. I am certain no one else has seen them. Chernow and I…it makes no matter. I think…I think they may aid you, in developing your argument. At least to show where he started, before compromising his ideals.”

“What.” She took a deep breath. “Oh god, Emily’s going to kill me…and I have to get these papers to Wolcott by Tuesday, and I’m not even sure I believe you, but…what. Where? How?”

“That’s a very long story, but if you could examine them and judge for yourself as to their authenticity, we could proceed from there.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “You could publish yourself, make your name.”

His smile was sad and impossibly old. “My name has long since been made. I am after a different sort of legacy, these days. What say you?”

Just then her phone lit up. It was a text from Em. “ _good luck sweetie u got this! sorry i snapped, ill get dinner and pick up ur mom @ the airport so u can work. I believe in u!!!! <3<3<3.”_

“Right,” said Anna, “I’m gonna need Starbucks. You’re buying—you still owe me. Caramel brule latte, extra whip, none of that nonfat crap. I’ll pack up this shit and meet you over by the library.”

Fawcett’s grin seemed weirdly familiar. She found she liked it…maybe he was okay after all.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Let's Go Upstate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5582271) by [hollimichele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollimichele/pseuds/hollimichele)




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